"The imprisoned [says Hübmaier] were told that they would be kept in the prison until their death if they did not recant, so that they would behold neither sun nor moon, and that all together, the living and the dead, should remain in that dark tower until no one remained alive, so that in this way all should die together, perishing and rotting by the stench."
It would be hard to believe that the people of Zürich would have tolerated such inhuman cruelty, or that the council were capable of inflicting it, if official records[1] did not fully confirm these statements.
It was while suffering this confinement, and expecting the worst, that Hübmaier composed his Twelve Articles of Christian Belief, which he printed a year later at Nikolsburg. These articles are set forth in the form of a prayer—possibly a reminiscence of the Confessions of Augustine—and perhaps none of Hübmaier's writings is so characteristic of the spirit of the man. Their comparative brevity makes it possible to quote these articles in full:
- ↑ Egli, Actensammlung, Nos. 934, 936, 937, 1338.
